Well before my battery died(haven't replaced it yet), it was running great with little to no lag. I figured once I replaced the battery, I would upgrade my RAM and buy an external harddrive and unload all my pictures, videos, and music on to that.

You guys are saying that wouldn't work?

Oh and I forgot to mention, I'm low on cash. Would what I stated, help the cause at all? Cheapest route?!

What OS are you running? Apple doesn't update graphics drivers on older OSes, so if you don't have 10.8.3, I would get that. Upgrading the RAM will not cause the game to run faster, unless you are playing it with lots of apps in the background. Buying an external hard drive won't do anything.

Well before my battery died(haven't replaced it yet), it was running great

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Save your cash. Something changed. Possibly you lost some settings when the battery died.

Check the system Preferences. Engergy Saver and Display.

There may be some bit of hardware that needs a reset too. I'm not up to speed on your exact computer but many of the mac laptops have independent power controllers that may need a hard reset after the battery dies.

No setting changed when the battery died, the thing that changed is that you no longer have a battery. All laptops now come with a power supply that is a little too small to run CPU and GPU at full speed, so they need to borrow power from the battery while gaming. My system can burn off about 10% an hour during intense gaming.

I imagine that moment-to-moment power consumption can vary a bit depending on whether the CPU and GPU hit a strait-away on code optimization. To guarantee that a batteryless system never goes into a deficit, it must assume the worst case, and underclock to where it still has a little surplus no matter what.

On your 2010 it's probably worth replacing the battery still. I'm a bit disappointed (and worried for my 2012) that yours is trash already, how much were you working on/off of wall power?

Save your cash. Something changed. Possibly you lost some settings when the battery died.

Check the system Preferences. Engergy Saver and Display.

There may be some bit of hardware that needs a reset too. I'm not up to speed on your exact computer but many of the mac laptops have independent power controllers that may need a hard reset after the battery dies.

If those are fine, check the settings inside D3.

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Exactly what I was thinking because before the battery went out, it ran seamlessly.

No setting changed when the battery died, the thing that changed is that you no longer have a battery. All laptops now come with a power supply that is a little too small to run CPU and GPU at full speed, so they need to borrow power from the battery while gaming. My system can burn off about 10% an hour during intense gaming.

I imagine that moment-to-moment power consumption can vary a bit depending on whether the CPU and GPU hit a strait-away on code optimization. To guarantee that a batteryless system never goes into a deficit, it must assume the worst case, and underclock to where it still has a little surplus no matter what.

On your 2010 it's probably worth replacing the battery still. I'm a bit disappointed (and worried for my 2012) that yours is trash already, how much were you working on/off of wall power?

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Good information. The battery is literally shot. It has to be plugged into the wall for the computer to work. "No batteries available"

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BTW do you guys have any suggestions on where to get a good battery? for cheap?

Exactly what I was thinking because before the battery went out, it ran seamlessly.

Good information. The battery is literally shot. It has to be plugged into the wall for the computer to work. "No batteries available"

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BTW do you guys have any suggestions on where to get a good battery? for cheap?

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That really shouldn't happen on a three year old machine. Do you have an Apple Store nearby? Although you are out of warranty you might get lucky. There's also a chance it's the connection to the battery and not the battery itself that's the issue.

I wouldn't recommend buying a cheap aftermarket battery if you don't want to run the risk of completely hosing your laptop. Also, installing them isn't trivial. Best let Apple take care of it.

I wouldn't recommend buying a cheap aftermarket battery if you don't want to run the risk of completely hosing your laptop. Also, installing them isn't trivial. Best let Apple take care of it.

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It's better than that, there's a modest chance of a fake battery hosing your home down, with fire.

In About This Mac.., click on System Report, and go to the Power heading. OP, please post the Battery section, there's probably more than one fact there worth rolling up and smacking a Genius's nose with.

As people have already said, I would just get a new computer. If I were you, since you said you are low on cash, just go ahead and build your own PC. For $1000 if you get the right components, you will be able to run ANYTHING on Highest settings lag free! Just my recommendation.

His problem is CPU working at 1/2 speed without battery, but Geforce8600 is faster than 330m anyway

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No, the 8600m is slightly faster than the 320m. the GT330M is ~ 30% faster than the 8600m.
The problem is the CPU which you point out is throttled.
Starcraft 2 is one of the games that actually needs lots of CPU power.

I had a both 2010MBP and a 2008 MBP for a short period of time, and played SC2, and the 2010 was almost 50% faster due to both better GPU and CPU.

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